Credit: The Associated Press

Brian Johnson was caught off guard last month when text messages buzzed into his phone asking about a move into the bullpen. Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski had raised the possibility during the General Managers’ Meetings.

Johnson wasn’t necessarily expecting it, but he wasn’t fazed by it either.

“I’m open to anything as long as I’m in the big leagues,” he said. “Any way you can help the team out, no matter what it is, as long as you can help. If that’s what the big league team needs me to do, I’ll do it.”

After five spot starts for the Red Sox last season – one of them a complete game shutout – Johnson is in a curious position heading into next year. For now, he looks like the sixth starter (seventh once Eduardo Rodriguez is healthy), so it makes sense to have him stretched out. But he’s also one of the most advanced young arms in the organization, and if he’s crowded out of the rotation, it might make sense to find a role for him in the bullpen where Robby Scott is the only established lefty.

Ultimately, his role could be determined by outside factors, including roster additions and the status of Steven Wright following his domestic assault arrest.

“I just kind of control what I can control, and for me it’s whatever they need me to do,” Johnson said. “I haven’t been told what I’m going to do. Obviously when I get to spring training I’ll probably have conversations with Alex (Cora) and Dave (Dombrowski) and Dana (LeVangie) and see whatever we need to do, and I look forward to it.”

Now 27, Johnson had a 4.33 ERA in his five big league starts last season. He had a 3.09 ERA in Triple-A. He, Hector Velazquez and Jalen Beeks – freshly added to the 40-man roster, whom Johnson praised as a legitimate big league talent – currently standout as the Red Sox most readily available rotation depth.

Johnson was a first-round pick in 2012, but his career has been occasionally stalled by sometimes fluke injuries. But he had a standout moment with a shutout against the Mariners on May 27. He said he’s fully healthy this offseason.

“Whenever you have a little success, you try to build off that,” Johnson said. “And then you always have something to relate to. So, for me, you scuffle in an inning, you can always go back to when you had success and get back to what you did well there. You can do that in-game, in-inning. That’s what helped me out, knowing that once you had success, you’ve done it before (and) you have that history to fall back on.”

And how does yet another left-handed Red Sox starting pitcher feel about the Yankees stockpiling right-handed power bats? Par for the course, Johnson said.

“I was playing against Aaron (Judge) and Gary (Sanchez) in (Class A),” Johnson said. “You come up playing against a lot of those guys when you’re young. It’s good for baseball to see that. I think it’s competitive, and I think when you get to the big leagues, you want to play against the best. You know that the Yankees are going to bring that out. I’m excited. You just have to mix and keep guys honest.

“They’re human. The Warriors lost a couple of games, right? It is what it is. Everyone is human. There’s a human component to this game where everyone is going to make mistakes. They’re going to swing and miss and make outs, and you’re going to give up runs. Just roll with the punches and keep working hard.”